The present invention is directed to a children's expansion gate for closing off room openings, doorways, entrance ways, and the like, to prevent passage therethrough by children, and to keep them confined in a desired general area. Such expansion gates are typically used for children between the ages of 6 months and 24 months. The gates expand to fit the size of the opening which is to be closed off. In its desired, expanded position, the gate is locked in place relative to the walls forming the opening, so as to preclude forced removal by a child attempting to enter the closed-off room, space, hallway, or the like.
However, the conventional children's expansion gate heretofore used has been a source of considerable danger and risk to the very children it is supposed to protect. The problem has arisen due to the openings formed in accordian-type children's gates, which openings are generally diamond-shaped. These openings have allowed children to insert their heads therein, with the ofttimes concomitant entrapment therein, causing injury. Further, currently-available children's expansion gates also have V-shaped cut-outs formed at the top of the gate, which have been responsible for many deaths to children, since a child will often insert his or her neck therein, and not be able to remove it. If the gate is contracted during such condition, strangulation of the child may occur.
Recently, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has banned the sale of these children's expandable gates, as well as children's expandable enclosures, from which the above-enumerated danger is present. New safety standards have recently been proposed by the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) by which the area of the diamond-shaped openings and the angular extension of the V-shaped cut-outs would have to conform to size and configuration that does not allow the inserting therein of a head or neck of a child between the ages of 6 months and 24 months. Such standards would require the V-shaped cut-outs to have an angular expanse, in the gate's most extended position, of at least 70 degrees, and each diamond-shaped opening small enough to prevent a template from entering therein, which template provides the minimum size and dimensions of a child's head and neck to ensure that no child between the ages of 6 months and 24 months could get his or her head caught therein. These standards also would require that the distance from the floor or support, above which the gate or enclosure projects, to the lowermost point of the upper surface of the gate to be at least 22 inches. Further, it also would require that the distance from the floor or support to the highest point on the lowermost surface of the gate or enclosure to be such that it would not admit of the template used to test the size of the diamond-shaped openings, to prevent a child's head from becoming entrapped between the floor and the bottom of the gate or enclosure.